


A Wave Tossed in the Ocean

by hauntedlittledoll



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman Incorporated (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Psychological Trauma, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 16:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedlittledoll/pseuds/hauntedlittledoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick was severely injured shortly after Damian was resurrected, and the former dynamic duo recover together.</p><p>Sequel - Safer Not to Answer (http://archiveofourown.org/works/972473)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Wave Tossed in the Ocean

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song ”Who am I?” by Casting Crowns.

Damian settled himself at his mentor’s feet with his sketchbook.

Grayson’s hand found its way into Damian’s hair, smoothing the dark tufts gingerly as Damian began sketching the rough shapes of Titus and the fountain that the Great Dane liked to investigate.  Damian believed the koi fish were what held the dog’s interest up until the inevitable splashing occurred.

There was a reason that Damian sat all the way back here next to Grayson.

_… living water all around him … in his nostrils, mouth, lungs … he’s drowning and reviving at the same time … it hurts …_

“Damian,” his older brother murmured quietly, the hand stilling against the curve of Damian’s skull.

He automatically relaxed his grip on the pencil.  The hand in his hair picked up its rhythmic movement once more, and it was a peaceful afternoon in the garden again.  Damian leaned back to rest his head against Grayson’s knee, careful not to put any actual pressure on the man’s lower legs.

Dick Grayson wasn’t fragile, but he could be damaged.

So could Damian Wayne.  So could _Robin_.

Damian exhaled slowly, picked up his eraser and set to correcting the damage he had wrought while distracted.  It was difficult to pick up dark lines scrawled carelessly across the page; it would have been faster to start over from the beginning.

Damian didn’t believe in ‘do-overs’ any more.

The page in front of Damian was almost pristine by the time Alfred brought them tea.  The boy reluctantly set his work aside to slither up into the chair beside Grayson and busy himself with the small sandwiches.  Alfred always joined them—or rather, they joined Alfred—for tea although they’ve recently moved out into the garden to appreciate the last of the good weather.

Like Damian, Alfred must pretend not to see Grayson’s hands shake.  The man’s physical therapy was proceeding well, but a full teacup would be heavy and awkward to a man who could only make a weak fist.

He didn’t want their help anymore, so they must allow him to make do.  It wasn’t pride—Grayson remained unruffled as they took turns feeding him while his hands were healing—but the triumph of practicality and necessity of physical therapy reasserted Dick’s independence.

Damian worried about that.

For now, his older brother must hold the teacup in both hands, but he doesn’t spill a drop.

Sometimes small victories are all that mattered.

Of the two of them, Damian was more likely to dash a teacup  across the stone; indeed, some of their tea parties ended that way.  Damian thought that he had known anger before, but that had been cold and bitter in comparison to the white-hot flashes after the Pit.

There and gone, up and down, furious and apathetic … each in their turn.

It could be controlled, his Grandfather said.  It could be measured and ignored.  Damian could cram it into a locked box in the back of his head and turn a blank slate on most offenders.

He had a thousand reasons to be angry.

He had one reason to sit quietly in the garden and drink his tea while the dog worried Father’s over-sized goldfish, and that reason gently reached out to rest two fingers along the pulse point in Damian’s wrist.

Grayson often initiated physical contact to keep Damian focused.  Dwelling on traumatic memories and pit-madness led to broken teacups.  It led to confusion and accidentally on-purpose hurting his loved ones.

Damian set his teacup down carefully.  Pennyworth immediately pressed another sandwich into his hands, and Damian took the time to dissect it neatly piece by piece while the others talked softly about inconsequential things.

Grayson’s plight had taught him patience.  His own death had taught him limits—namely that his parents had them.

Damian pulled his knees up to his chest, withdrawing from Grayson’s touch in order to wrap his arms around them and metaphorically hold himself together.  Titus returned to his post, leaning the great head against his Master’s side, and Damian remembered drawing comfort from the dog his first few days back at the Manor.

They were never one without the other.  All the while that Damian had been dead, Titus guarded his grave.  Grandfather rewarded that kind of loyalty, and Titus was the first living creature to reach Damian.

Freeing himself had been painful, everything hampered by the inescapable green as much as the restraints.  He had finally fallen to the stone floor in wild-eyed confusion until the dog slammed into him, setting all four legs stiffly over Damian’s prone form  as the beast took up his guard once more and growling a warning to the man that watched from the corner.  Damian had latched onto the warm body until his mind began to clear and the name of his pet and the observer came back to him.

_I do not suffer the loss of my heirs lightly, Damian, and my daughter no longer speaks for the House of al Ghul.  You are a child of my line and afforded certain protections …_

… until the time came for the Demon’s Head to take a new vessel.

Damian kept Titus between him and Grandfather at first, reluctant to accept the care of Ra’s al Ghul.  He clutched at Titus’ collar as his Grandfather guided him through a cleansing from the Pit water and dried him off—Ra’s performing each service personally and gently as a firm, deliberate contrast to Mother’s care.  Damian leaned into his pet wearily as his family invaded Grandfather’s base too easily for the Demon’s Head to have any actual intent to repel the heroes.

Damian couldn’t trust anyone or anything at first with the voices in his head and a shifting reality of vague hallucinations, but he could trust the warm weight of Titus against his side.  He could believe in the joyful barking, the sleek flank, and the stench of dog-breath.

Letting go of the ridiculous beast to go to his family was hard; Father tried hauling both of them into a single embrace which seemed a foolish feat of strength even for the Batman.  Damian was passed reluctantly from Father to Grayson and back again.  If they weren’t desperately clutching at Damian, his guardians were petting and praising Titus like the silly animal was solely responsible for Damian’s resurrection.

Both boy and dog were indulged in the aftermath.  Damian mysteriously acquired a larger bed so that Titus could sleep beside him.  Father accompanied them about the grounds regularly.

Grayson had patted both of their heads the night he left.

_It’s a mess out there, kiddo, and it’s my mess.  Give me a week to tidy up, and then I’ll be back.  You can’t get rid of me, Damian.  I’ll be home again soon._

A week.

Not even, and the news was relayed on every station.  Barely that, and Nightwing hung in a religious mockery high above the fun-loving crowds that he had returned to protect.  The Bats nigh-instantly converged on Chicago en masse—even Damian.

Field-ready or no, Father didn’t dare leave him behind.  Not again.

It had been a very short battle.  Damian didn’t remember most of it—just the blood on his gauntlets as he helped get his brother down and the way that Nightwing tried to shield Damian with his own crippled body at the end.

So, yes, a week was all it had taken to land Dick Grayson in Gotham and in his family’s care for the foreseeable future.  Damian’s older brother _always_ kept his promises.

Damian overturned his chair, flinging himself away from the tea table and Titus’ warm body in the same movement.  It took a few steps further down the path to rein himself in.  Swallowing hard, Damian stared out over the darkening garden.  He had not even noticed the time that had passed or Pennyworth’s quiet disappearance.

“Damian.”

Damian clenched his fists at his sides, ground his teeth viciously, and resolved not to turn around.  It didn’t work.  He returned wearily to Grayson’s side and allowed his older brother to pull Damian close.  Grayson would get nowhere if Damian resisted, but the boy allowed it.

Grayson wrapped his arms carefully around Damian’s frame, resting his chin against the younger boy’s shoulder.  It was a cautious hug, tempered as much by Damian’s unpredictability as by the dissipation of Grayson’s muscle mass.

Grayson pretended that it was only the damage to his shins that slowed his steps … just the local trauma to his palms (and didn’t the villains know that the correct way to crucify someone would be through the wrist?) that caused him pain … that the sheer muscle strain of bearing his own weight in such a fashion had no effect on such an acrobatic vigilante.  Grayson was most excellent at pretending, but his family knew better.  Damian knew better.

Let Grayson dream.  Damian did every time he closed his eyes.

Damian dreamed of gutting his clone.  He dreamed of slicing off the ear of the woman who betrayed Grayson.  He dreamed of attacking Todd and Pennyworth.  Damian dreamed of Drake carrying him from the Cave and Father’s not-so-empty cowl.  He dreamed of trading places with Titus, and of drowning in the very substance that gave him life.  He dreamed of being weightless as a soft feminine voice teased him, and of being bodily removed from an explosive that Damian couldn’t deactivate.  He dreamed of being dead, of being Robin again, and sometimes … sometimes Damian even dreamed of his mother’s hand in his hair.

Some of these things had occurred.  Some had not.

Some—like his Mother’s touch—will never happen again.

Grandfather also kept his word.


End file.
